This was contained in an open letter by the association to the new governor. The letter which read in part demanded that Uba Sani clarify the air by speaking on the content of the video thus “Having soberly considered the contents and implications of such communication by a former State Governor who is known to be your close ally, we feel compelled to write you, to know where you stand with regards to the commotions Mallam el-Rufai intends to propagate and perpetuate in our state.”
Part of the letter also reads: “We write you today because we are responsible stakeholders in the affairs of our beloved state with our own congregations and followers. We cannot fold our hands and watch unpatriotic persons who neither live in the state nor care about it, come and set it ablaze at will. Moreso, we and our congregations have prominently been at the receiving end of the terrors of ineffective governance, especially in the last eight (8) years.”
For the avoidance of doubt, the now-viral video in reference, is that in which ex-Governor Nasiru Ahmed el-Rufai among other things, speaking in Hausa language, categorically made the following points, that: most Christians in Kaduna do not vote his party (the APC), hence the reason why he orchestrated their exclusion from being even Deputy Governor; APC can win elections without the Christians; for the same reason, he deliberately excluded Christians in all the top cadre of the governance of the state, to wit: Governor, Deputy Governor, Secretary to the State Government, Chief of Staff to the Governor, Commissioner of Finance etc, whom he bragged, are all Muslims.
Muslim dominated LGAs like Kubau benefit more from government than Christian dominated LGAs like Jaba; according to him, that is what Islamic clerics taught Muslims, and that is justice for him as a Muslim; in his campaign, he made the Christians believe that his party does not discriminate anyone on the bases of religious affiliation, but it was meant to deceive them as they would certainly discriminate; campaigns were not ran by their politicians but by the Islamic clerics, and this was done up to the polling booths with the assistance of the Islamic paramilitary group – Yan Agaji;
the policy of exclusion of Christians in governance has just begun, and will continue until the Christians cannot resist anymore; the ex-governor kept referring to the Christians as “Them” and the Muslims as “Us”, to emphasize that the Christian does not belong, yet will still contradict himself by saying that his government is fair to all;
“Mr. Governor, this, to every decerning mind, is not only the evidence of discrimination and the provocation that most Christian communities and individuals have endured in our state, especially during the reign of former Governor Nasiru el-rufai. It is also an explanation for the many unjust policies of his administration, uneven distribution of state resources, the wanton killings and kidnappings that afflicted the Christian dominated areas, and the nonchalance and sometimes scornful response of government to the distress calls of victims;
“It is important to call your attention to the fact (which we believe you already have details of), that during the pendency of the last administration, our association almost lost count of our members who were steadily being targeted, kidnaped and killed! In most cases, priests were executed after paying huge sums as ransom. This is apart from the several other pastors of other Christian denominations and countless whole Christian communities that are being steadily raided, ransacked, burnt down and their inhabitants either taken for ransom or slaughtered without any of the perpetrators brought to book, nor any support for the survivors from the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), or the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), nor from any other government agency. The only response that would usually come their way from government has been bizarre and inhumane accusations that they provoked their killers, tagging the atrocities as justified revenge killings, with punitive curfews and proscription of socio-cultural and developmental associations of some socio-cultural communities…
“We expect that you will use your good office to correct the fallacies that the former Governor’s actions and comments have created and propagated. These fallacies are, that: Christians and Muslims in Kaduna State are at war with each other; your party, the APC, is a party for Muslims; being a Christian in Kaduna State is a misfortune if not an offense, as religion automatically excludes one from certain state privileges which should be accessible to all citizens; the inter-religious dialogue promoted even by the state is a mere ploy to deceive non-Muslims and subjugate them to Islamic political domination; your campaign promises were insincere and not ever to be trusted; against the provisions of extant laws, Muslim religious clerics and places of worship have become political campaign officers, and offices/hubs respectively, and so on;
